1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a communications system and in particular to a method and apparatus for routing data within the communications system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for delivering and presenting the calling (originating) party's name information to the called (terminating) party's mobile station in a wireless communications system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many of the present digital telecommunications networks of the world are based on time-division multiple access (TDMA) and use transmission and switching products like digital switches and pulse coded modulation (PCM) transmission at E1 or T1 rates. TDMA users share the radio spectrum in the time domain. An individual user is allocated a time slot and, during this time slot, the user accesses the whole frequency band allocated to the system (wideband TDMA) or only a part of the band (narrow band TDMA). In TDMA, transmission take place in bursts from a mobile station to a base station in an uplink path with only one user transmitting to the base station at any given time. In the downlink path from the base station to the mobile station, the base station usually transmits continuously with the mobile station listening only during the assigned time slot. TDMA channel multiplexes the bids from a number of users. This type of system requires transmission at a higher bit rate over a radio frequency channel.
Another technology that is becoming more widely used is code-division multiple access (CDMA) in a spread spectrum. Spread spectrum techniques spread the bandwidth of the transmitting signal over a spectrum or band of frequency much larger than the minimal band width required to transmit the signal. CDMA has an ability to lock out conflicting signals, which may allow it to share a system with other radio signals without interference.
Wireless technology is an important component of the global information infrastructure. To exploit the full potential of this technology, regulators and administrators of all countries are re-evaluating their spectrum allocation policy. A large segment of the spectrum around two GHz bandwidth has already been released for the use of wireless networks. More spectrum is being allocated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and countries like the United States of America and Canada around the 7-10 GHz range to use wireless technology for broadband wireless applications. Wireless networks are being built all over the world to handle a large volume of traffic and mobility.
With the increased demand for cellular telephones, manufacturers look for new technologies to overcome the problems of poor signals and battery performance. Poor signals resulted in poor performance for the user and a high frequency of false hand offs in the system. Better battery performance was needed to reduce size and costs of hand held units. The size of handsets and better battery performance led to low power designs and performance targets possible only using fully digital technologies. In particular, digital cellular systems based on the global system for mobile communications (GSM) using TDMA have emerged in Europe while systems based on IS-54 using TDMA and IS-95 using CDMA are being developed in the United States.
With current PCS 1900 systems and other GSM based systems, a communication for providing calling party name information is not available. Although North American Wire Line Systems have name delivery, no such system is currently available for wireless communications systems, in particular GSM based systems including PCS 1900. Wireless communications systems have an added difficulty in presenting calling party name information because this information must be transported over an air interface to the mobile station. Some existing mobile stations allow user to store name characters next to known phone numbers in the mobile system. In response to incoming calls, the mobile station will display the name associated with the received number. This system of presenting calling party name information, however, works only for known names and numbers entered by a user into the mobile station.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide an improved method and apparatus for delivering and presenting calling party name information to mobile station customers.